The Tailor
by whatcatydidnext
Summary: Who is the man who collects the mysterious letters from the little tailors shop? Why are the letters a secret? What will happen to the her now she is alone?
1. Chapter 1

I know this isn't actually a fanfic…prob not supposed to do this but…

Non-disclaimer: I do own this, isn't that nice to say, so I can do what I like with it!  
This is an odd little thing; it's sort of where Elias in Treatment of the Lower Orders came from. A friend was doing a creative writing course at college and this was an exercise they had to do. They were just given words and told to make what they could of them. It's just a train of thought really, but I found it interesting to see how it developed. It's not beta-ed or anything, just there really. See what you think.

And believe it or not the man in the last piece is not RA! I wrote this in 2003 and I'd never heard of him then. Though it could be…

The tailor.  
There was a tailor.  
There was once a poor tailor.  
There was once a tailor who was poor.  
A tailor lived in poverty.  
There was a tailor who had very little money.  
A tailor lived with almost no money.  
There was a tailor who had nothing.  
There was a tailor who had nothing, but her needles and her thread.

Once upon a time there lived a poor tailor. She did not want to be a tailor at all, but she could sew a suit and people paid her to sew suits, so that is what she did.  
On this particular day it was raining as she sat in her workshop plying her needle. She could see people scurrying off through the wet streets, trying to get home before they got too sodden. And she thought how cosy, warm and dry her workshop was, and how convenient it was to live where you worked. And then it seemed to her that sewing suits was not so bad after all.

The Tailor.  
The tailoress had sewn suits for clerks since she was 10, before that she fetched and carried for her father when he made the suits for clerks. But then her father became ill, and could no longer sit cross legged on the bench, bent over and sewing for hours at a time.  
It was then that she became aware of the curious people who came into the shop. They did not collect suits, they left letters that other people came and collect.  
It began one very wet afternoon, not long after her 15th birthday. It was summer, but the rain had just kept on coming. The city streets looked greasy and slick, the dark skies robbing the day of any cheer that might otherwise have been found.  
The bell above the door tinkled. She glanced up from her work and saw her father accept a letter; it was slipped over the table he used to cut the coarse suiting on. She looked away quickly, it was not her business.  
But this day the man spoke.  
"Buy more candles, she'll be blind by the time she's twenty." Hearing the clink of coin on the wooden table, she looked up curiously, but the man had gone.  
The next year her father's bones ached so, he could no longer stand to cut the cloth and he stayed in his bed instead. So she stitched and cared for him.

Letters came and letters went, she stitched on. Just enough money came in to pay the rent, feed them and buy cloth and thread. They lived on in their little workshop, just surviving.  
One morning when the sun was bright, the bell tinkled and the door opened. She put down the cloth, needle and thread, put her glasses on her head and went to the cutting table. She did not look up, she never looked up, but took the envelope that was pushed toward her and slid it under the table. As she laid her hand back, it was covered by another, much larger hand.  
"You should be certain who I am." The voice was low. She gave a start and looked up for the first time.  
Sighing as he looked at her spectacles he said. "I told your father to buy more candles. He did not." He lifted his hand from hers. "You must keep the letters in the kitchen now. This is too open, too dangerous. I'll show you where." He came around the cutting table and led her behind the curtain, into the kitchen.  
"Up here will do." He lifted an old tin off the top of the dresser and put the letter inside, then placed it back on the high shelf.

She wondered if he realised she would need a chair to reach it.  
"Have a care when you are getting it down." He turned to her, his face solemn, insistent. He bent low to speak, his hands about her waist. "Remember, me, only me."  
She nodded, looking closely. He was old, perhaps forty years? Very tall, intense grey eyes, a hook nose, thin lips, a narrow face, his hair dark, but flecked with grey.  
"Things have changed. No one but me will deliver, only the boy will collect. Do you understand?"  
She nodded slowly. "My father is no longer able now. I don't know how long I can afford to pay the rent here. What will you do if someone new rents the shop?"  
"We will pay you more to cover the rent." He smiled a small tight smile. From the saddle bag over his shoulder, he drew a pouch and gave her two gold pieces.  
"No, I cannot take gold, silver only. My neighbours will think…" She blushed, "I…" Stuttered, embarrassed.  
He laughed. "That you whore?"  
This made the tailor angry. Why did he think this was funny? "I hear men pay for any woman, even a poor tailor." She was indignant.  
"Oh aye they will pay, and pay high for the likes of you." He reached out and stroked her cheek with roughened fingers.  
"I will _not_ lose my character." She shrugged. "Silver only."  
Still chuckling, he replaced the gold coin with silver. "As I pay for your services, may I be permitted…?" He leant down and kissed her on the mouth. The only kiss she could remember was her mother's upon her brow as she settled her for sleep. Her father never hugged or kissed or even touched her. So this was something new. New things did not happen in the tailor's life, only more things or less things. More work, less work, more heat, less heat. New was unexpected.  
"Well?"  
"I don't know sir; I don't know what is done." She was not asking him what was done, but telling him she did not know. But she couldn't look at him, her feet preoccupied her.  
He sighed and drew her to him in a clumsy embrace. "And is best to stay thus." He whispered into her hair.

At Micklemass her father died. She spent a whole silver piece on his funeral. The neighbours spoke in hushed tones of the old tailor's secret wealth, wealth that was now his daughters. She did not respond to the butcher who wanted to sell her more expensive cuts of meat, or the goodwife who supplied her buttons, when she suggested that her son would make a fine husband.  
When He came again she told him the silver was a curse and she would have copper in its stead.  
He laughed again, and gave her copper.  
As he put the letter into the tin, for he knew she could not reach the high shelf, he pondered the situation. She was vulnerable now, this would make him vulnerable.  
"You have need of a protector."


	2. Chapter 2

The Tailor 2

Ice hung like pretty blades from the eaves of every building. Snow banked high against walls and windows. Mud, frozen in treacherously jagged ruts covered the city streets. The customary weekday bustle of the market was absent, winter's hostile grip and the ever present and brutally vigilant Iron Guard kept the wary townsfolk indoors, out of harm's way, they hoped.

The little tailor's basket contained only meagre fare; winter produce from the outlying farms had dwindled, every week less and less was to be had. She would make the best of what she bought, little as it was. Oh, but how she longed for a simple pot of coffee, perhaps some dried apples to make sweet cakes? She smiled to herself and remembered her father's rebuke when as a child she had voiced such wants.

'_If wishes were horses, gypsies would, girl.'_

She did not think often of her parents, they were now long gone and there was no help to her situation. She was an orphan and that was it, no family to care for her. To be sure, after the loss of her mother there had been little cheer in her life. After her father's death, only the 'Postman' as she thought of him, gave her days the prospect of interest, a quiet, secret feeling of hope. No friends to bring liveliness into her days. But she was a grown woman now; melancholic considerations do not keep the feet dry or the belly full.

Numb toes wriggled in sodden stockings. Titus the cobbler would want paying for the new soles her old winter boots needed and her hoard of copper was dwindling, it must be made to last at least till the spring. Perhaps she should grease the thick layer of paper that lay under her feet?

Hunching against the cold wind, she turned the corner into the quiet alley that led to her workshop. It was growing dark and the nightly curfew was upon them.

She stood before her door, laid her basket on the heap of snow from the cleared path, and with relief, stretched her spine, and flexed sore shoulders.

As she turned the key in the well-built old lock, a shadow fell across the snow. The hand that then rested heavily on her shoulder put the fear of God into her soul; she spun about in alarm to face what threat there may be, readying herself to shout for help, or even explain her presence out of doors past curfew.

"Shhhh…Please, make no sound," a low voice hissed.

It was no armoured Iron Guard that stood behind her, a robber then? "I have no money sir, nothing of value…" Moving back she lost her footing on the frozen mud, but was caught up and held securely by the only arms that had ever held her thus.

"Keep your coppers little one, do you not know me?" The hushed voice sounded disappointed.

"_Postman?" _

"Huh? Aye, I suppose I am." There was but small amusement in his tone. "Let us inside, out of these icy gusts." He steadied her and pulled the muffler from about his face.

She could not help but smile, he had a beard now, but it was her Postman, alive and well. Swiftly hefting the basket to her hip she pushed open the door, glad that she had left the fire made up in stove. A few minutes and the kettle would be boiling, the tea was well used, but it would be warming. She thought how nice it would have been if she had made sweet cakes.

"I have only bread and butter to offer." A thought struck her. "Though I think there might be a scrap of sweet ginger preserve in the…" She turned, the Postman stood before her, one hand clasping his hat to his chest, the other on the head of a of a child so bundled in scarves and shawls that it was impossible to say if it were boy or girl.

"Oh, I…" She looked curiously at the child. Huge grey eyes looked back.

"My son." He nodded, a note of apology in his voice. "There is a favour I would ask of you. I know 'tis a presumption. It may be you cannot help," he stumbled on. "A child, after all is not a letter."

"I do not understand, you wish to leave the child here?"

He followed her in, drawing the child gently behind him. "I know of nowhere else he would be safe, nowhere else he would be cared for…_properly_." He closed the door and, stamping the snow off his high riding boots, indicated to the child he should do likewise.

She smiled as the small bundle stamped with vigour, his wide eyes looking solemnly up to his father for approval. Answering with a tender smile, the father began to deftly unwrap the son. He was not a man unused to handling such things then? The more she watched the more questions that crowded her mind. They were all too personal for her to ask, certainly not fitting to be asked before the child at least. Instead, she busied herself at the stove. That she was sure of, hot tea and bread and butter, maybe she should toast the bread? With the scrape of sweet ginger preserve for the boy.


End file.
